


thy sun for orbit

by susiecarter



Category: Eye Candy (TV)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Confrontations, Extra Treat, Halloween, Hand Jobs, Identity Reveal, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Canon, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:22:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27330415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: He went for the party special, because it wasn't Halloween unless you'd drunk something fluorescently orange. He'd only been waiting for about fifteen seconds when a bartender set a glass in front of him—but then they nodded over his shoulder to somebody else, and said, "Yours'll be up in just a sec," to him."Sure," he half-shouted back, and then the somebody else whose drink it was reached in past Tommy to pick it up.The music changed. A bunch of people started cheering, and the crowd moved, swelled; somebody backed into the person behind Tommy, who inevitably bumped into Tommy in turn. "Oops," they said, low, practically into Tommy's ear, and Tommy turned to say it was no big and found himself facing the long dark beak of a—a plague doctor's mask.
Relationships: Bubonic/Tommy Calligan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	thy sun for orbit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/gifts).



> Another year, another inadvisable handjob at an IRL Halloween party. :D Happy Shipoween! ♥
> 
> Title borrowed from "[Thy Sun for Orbit](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=22450)" by Kathryn Worth, because when in doubt with these guys I just pick something that sounds a little obsessive and roll with it.

Lindy was back in town in time for Halloween.

Sophia would probably have held a party at IRL no matter what. But with Lindy back, there was no way she wasn't pulling out all the stops, and Tommy wasn't surprised in the least when he got a text drafting him into service to help out with the decorations. Sophia had all the design stuff figured out; she just needed some extra hands. Especially hands, as she explained to him when he arrived, that were attached to tall people.

Lindy wasn't there. "Oh, she's still working on invites," Sophia said. "Trying to get in touch with a couple people who helped her and her sister out while she was off being a vigilante hacker detective, you know."

In retrospect, he probably should have treated that as a warning. He probably should have remembered Lindy didn't care a whole lot about crossing lines—about which sides of those lines her friends were on, or why.

But as it was, he nodded and didn't think about it again. They were done in plenty of time, and Sophia sent him home to go change; when he asked what he was supposed to change into, she gave him a scandalized look and said, "Your _costume_ , obviously! And if you come in your dress uniform or whatever and tell me you're being a cop for Halloween, I'm having you removed from the building."

He went back to his apartment, and dug around until he found a suit instead. Ordinary: black slacks, black jacket, black tie. Then all he needed was sunglasses, technically, but he went the extra mile and found a silver pen, too. Nobody could argue you hadn't made an effort if you had props.

Sophia—who was doing an A+ Batwoman, no argument—gave him a flat look when he explained to her that he was a Man In Black. But then he held up the silver pen and clicked it at her, and she cracked and started laughing, which he was pretty sure meant he'd won.

IRL was already like three-quarters full, and there had been the beginnings of a line outside; inside, the decorations had already looked good, but the low lighting made it all about ten times better. The club lights had all been swapped to just white and orange, and the flickers of strobing, the way the mist from the fog machines in the corners of the room crept along the floor and caught it, made the crowd look extra unreal, like they were all decorations themselves.

It took about twenty minutes for Tommy to find Lindy. She'd gone classic—Princess Leia, in white, but not with the cinnamon roll buns; one step sideways from what you might have expected, because it was Lindy. She was rocking the braid crown, the geometric silver necklace, from the medal ceremony scene instead, though she still definitely had a blaster strapped to her hip.

She raised her eyebrows at him, posed and gestured to herself, and he gave her a thumbs-up without hesitating. "Should've guessed," he said, wry, voice raised over the music. "She was kind of a hacker, right, hiding that message in the trashcan droid?"

"R2-D2, jesus," Lindy said, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly—but then she laughed, leaned in and kissed him on the cheek and put her arms around his shoulders, a brief hard hug.

"I'm glad you're okay," he said into her ear.

"Yeah," she said, letting go, and smiled at him.

"And Sara?"

"Yeah, she's okay, too," she said. "She's going to be okay. And I know I said it already, but thanks for the assist."

"What assist," he said pointedly, because if anybody found out he'd altered that APB put out on her last month so the description didn't match her anymore, he was screwed.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, and pinched his cheek, patted it; and then she turned sober, serious, hand still resting on his face, and said, "I mean it. Thank you, Tommy."

It didn't make any sense to try to slip into small talk after that, so he didn't try. He shrugged it off, gestured to the bar, and she gave him a look that said he wasn't being subtle, but she didn't try to stop him from eeling away to go buy himself a drink.

He went for the party special, because it wasn't Halloween unless you'd drunk something fluorescently orange. He'd only been waiting for about fifteen seconds when a bartender set a glass in front of him—but then they nodded over his shoulder to somebody else, and said, "Yours'll be up in just a sec," to him.

"Sure," he half-shouted back, and then the somebody else whose drink it was reached in past Tommy to pick it up.

The music changed. A bunch of people started cheering, and the crowd moved, swelled; somebody backed into the person behind Tommy, who inevitably bumped into Tommy in turn. "Oops," they said, low, practically into Tommy's ear, and Tommy turned to say it was no big and found himself facing the long dark beak of a—a plague doctor's mask.

He tensed up, involuntary, heart abruptly pounding its way into overdrive. It could have been somebody else, he told himself, but fuck, it wasn't; there was no way. He recognized that fucking mask, covering exactly the same portions of the face it always did, shaped the exact same way it always was, the length and the curve of the fucking beak. He'd stared at that mask way, way too many times, analyzing every single frame of every video over and over again, not to know it when he saw it.

He turned and gripped Bubonic by the shoulder, too hard—shoved him, forced him sideways through the crowd, and Bubonic _let_ him; strobing orange illuminated him perfectly for a second, sidelong angle of the light showing Tommy the smug curve of his mouth beneath the lower edge of the mask.

They'd been close to the end of the bar already. There was a wall right there, and it was off the dance floor, the furthest wall from the entrance of IRL. The handful of people leaning against it were further down, closer to the tables instead. Tommy had plenty of room to push Bubonic up against it, without having to worry anybody was going to hear what they were saying.

For a second, he was frozen, just standing there. He didn't—he didn't know what to do first. Jesus, he _had Bubonic_ , he—he had to arrest him, he had to do something; Bubonic was letting Tommy pin him to the wall, still smiling that tiny slanting smile, and Tommy wanted to wipe it off his face more than he'd ever wanted anything else in his life.

Tommy swallowed, reached up with his other hand and gripped the mask in it, yanked it viciously off; the ties at the back of Bubonic's head caught for a second and then came loose, and Tommy had it off, and Jesus fucking Christ, it was that guy.

"You," Tommy heard himself say.

Bubonic's smile widened—indulgent, now, patronizingly fond. "Me," he agreed, very softly, almost too quiet to hear. "Are you really so surprised, Detective Calligan?"

 _Of course I am_ , Tommy wanted to shout, because—Jesus fucking Christ. It hadn't even occurred to him. It hadn't even crossed his mind. The guy he'd found in his apartment that day had seemed so _ordinary_ , so casual and then so confused; and then wide-eyed, bewildered, when Tommy'd pulled a gun on him. It didn't make any sense, that that guy had been _Bubonic_ —

Except of course it did. Of course he'd wanted to be there, to see for himself what he'd done, how well it had worked. To watch Tommy react. That had always been what he'd been after, every time: Tommy, Tommy's reactions, Tommy's distress and frustration, so he could roll around in it and laugh. If anybody in the world knew Tommy's life inside and out, could monitor Tommy's location and estimate exactly when Tommy was going to get home, exactly when Tommy would come in and realize what had happened to his apartment, it was absolutely Bubonic.

He'd planned it. He'd been there waiting. He must've been so fucking thrilled when Tommy'd shown up, getting to call out, _All the good stuff's been grabbed_ , like he hadn't made sure of it personally.

Fuck.

"No," Tommy ground out, and Bubonic gave him a knowing look and laughed, a disdainful breath through his nose.

"Oh, come now, aren't we past the point in our relationship where you feel the need to lie to me? You _were_ surprised. You are. You had no idea, did you? How delightful."

Tommy gritted his teeth, shifted his grip from Bubonic's upper arm to his wrist—the other wrist, too, knocking the drink out of Bubonic's hand, and it was a mean satisfaction to let the glass shatter on the floor, even though Tommy was going to have to remember to own up and pay Sophia for that later.

"You have the right to remain silent," he made himself say, and Bubonic raised an eyebrow, mouth twisting.

"Arresting me? On what charge?"

Tommy stopped.

"How exactly were you intending to prove my identity to anyone?" Bubonic pressed. "It's Halloween, you know. I doubt I'm the only person in New York City wearing a plague doctor's mask tonight. I was in your apartment once, so I suppose you can at least positively identify me as a trespasser; but you pulled your service weapon on me without cause, at the time. You could have shot me, over nothing more than a misunderstanding. Police violence against civilians is no joke. I'm sure I could make a suit to the city out of that, if I were motivated to do so. Would you like to motivate me, Detective Calligan?"

Tommy screwed his eyes shut. Jesus. He wanted to argue; he wanted to slam Bubonic's head into the wall; he wanted to break Bubonic's fucking nose. But—Bubonic was right. Tommy knew who he was talking to. He couldn't help but know. But that wasn't going to be enough, and if Bubonic hadn't been sure of that, he'd never have shown up here in the first place.

He didn't bother answering the question. He just switched gears again, set his forearm across Bubonic's chest and kept him pinned against the wall, leaned in over it and bit out, "What the hell are you even doing here?"

"Why, I was invited, of course," Bubonic murmured.

Shit. "Lindy," Tommy said.

Bubonic smiled. "Miss Sampson very nearly became a colleague of mine at one point. I assume you know that, since you were surveilling her at the time. She was pursuing leads about her sister even then. Unfortunately, the opportunity I had to assist her fell through. I was pleased to have the chance to make it up to her, about three months ago."

Three months ago. That was when Lindy had hit her first genuinely solid clues as to where Sara had ended up, who had her and why.

And of course Lindy hadn't cared that it was fucking _Bubonic_. Of course she'd been glad, grateful. Of course she'd fucking invited him to Sophia's fucking Halloween party.

Tommy swallowed the incredulous laugh that was trying to claw its way up his throat, and shook his head.

"You know, I think I'm a little offended, Detective Calligan," Bubonic added thoughtfully. "I went to some effort to be here tonight. You seem determined not to appreciate that."

Tommy did laugh at that, a sharp strained bark of it. "Oh, please," he said. "As if you've ever given half a shit about being _appreciated_ by me—"

"Oh, but I do," Bubonic said.

He was—he didn't look like he was kidding. He didn't look like much of anything, face unreadable, mouth almost flat; his gaze was cool and glittering, as if he somehow still had the upper hand here, as if he hadn't been shoved into a wall and had his mask ripped off his head—or as if he had, but he'd been counting on it.

"Of course I do. You know that. What else has all of this ever been about?"

"You _fucking_ with me," Tommy said, "that's what. You yanking my chain every chance you get, because tormenting me is your idea of fun—"

"And you play along so beautifully, every time," Bubonic observed. He let his head tip back, eyes still fixed on Tommy, the long line of his throat suddenly seeming weirdly exposed, and Tommy—didn't know why he was even looking at it. "One might almost think you liked it. Going off alone, no matter how many times your captain tells you not to. Refusing to report strange texts from unknown numbers. Letting yourself be lured into back alleys where men are waiting for you—"

He meant the time with that guy, the guy he'd set up to beat Tommy unconscious. But there was something about the way he said it now, _back alleys where men are waiting for you_ , that made it sound—obscene. Tommy felt himself flush, dug his teeth into his lip. "Shut up," he gritted out, and drew Bubonic an inch away from the wall just for the satisfaction of shoving him into it again.

But it didn't help. Bubonic rode it out, that hard pale stare searching Tommy's face. "Oh, my," he said, soft. "I'm right, aren't I? You do. You _do_ like it."

"Stop," Tommy said. "Don't—"

He should've said no. He didn't know why he wasn't saying no.

"How very fascinating," Bubonic murmured, and Tommy still had him cornered, but it didn't—it didn't feel like he did anymore; instead it was like Bubonic's eyes had gone straight through him, pinned him like a butterfly to a card, and he was the one who was trapped.

Bubonic hadn't touched him, not once. He'd let Tommy topple his drink from his hands without trying to grab after it, and he'd left his hands at his sides once Tommy had released his wrists, not trying to push back or shove Tommy away from him.

He lifted them, now, but only to settle them for a moment at Tommy's waist—to skim them, slow, light, barely there, from there down to Tommy's hips, catching on the bump of Tommy's belt beneath his suit jacket—

"Don't," Tommy said again, but it came out hoarse, scraped thin, not how he'd wanted it to sound at all. He only had one free hand, his arm still braced across Bubonic's chest, and he grabbed one of Bubonic's wrists with it, digging his fingers in hard. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"You started it," Bubonic said, mild. "Backing a man up against a wall in a club, late at night—gives a person certain ideas, doesn't it?"

"You're out of your mind," Tommy snapped, but heat had settled into his face; his heart was hammering. "Get off me—"

"Are you sure that's what you want?" Bubonic murmured. "Would you like me to get off you, Detective Calligan? Or would you like me to get you off?"

Tommy had one of his hands, caught, pinned at Tommy's side, unmistakable heat bleeding straight through Tommy's suit. But the other—the other started moving again, trailed along the cut of Tommy's hip and then flattened itself out, palm against him, and _rubbed_.

Tommy wasn't hard. But he was going to be, in about ten seconds; he was—he felt alert, skin prickling, sharp and hypersensitive, and there had always been a thin fucking line there for him, blood up from the danger, pulse rushing with frustration, only ever an inch away from something else entirely.

He sucked in a sharp breath, tried to twist his hips away and get the fly of his slacks out from under Bubonic's fingers; but Bubonic's grip on his side tightened, and it was a chain reaction from there, Tommy's hand tightening in response on Bubonic's wrist, Tommy shoving his arm in harder against Bubonic, Bubonic's head tipping against the wall—Bubonic's tongue flickering out to wet his lips, like he was—like he was into this, and shit, fuck, Tommy really needed to be looking somewhere else—

"Feel free to make a scene," Bubonic said, mouth slanting. "But I imagine you'll have more than a little bit of trouble explaining this."

Tommy swallowed, braced, furious; and then Bubonic narrowed his eyes, moved the heel of his hand in one long slow stroke up the shape of Tommy's cock in his pants, and fuck, it was just right. Tommy's knees went weak, he couldn't—his eyes fell half-shut on their own, heavy, and he swayed into the pressure of Bubonic's hand and just barely managed to choke down the noise caught in the back of his throat.

"There we go," Bubonic murmured. "Don't worry, Detective Calligan. I'll wipe the cameras for you," and god, Tommy knew that should have taken care of it, the reminder of where they were, that there were people who could look over and—guess what they were doing, even if they couldn't actually see shit; that IRL had security cameras, that even if Tommy stopped right this fucking second and punched Bubonic in the face, there was evidence anyway, recorded in real time.

It should have stopped him cold.

It didn't.

"God, fuck you," Tommy ground out, and Bubonic breathed out a laugh and rubbed harder, pushed his hand between Tommy's thighs and ran his thumb along Tommy's inseam; Tommy swore, and he was sick of the fucking teasing but he couldn't—he couldn't bring himself to chase after it. As if drawing a line there did any goddamn good: yeah, he'd let Bubonic jerk him off in a crowded club, but at least he wouldn't thrust into Bubonic's hands. What an amazing show of restraint and good judgment _that_ was—

Bubonic dug his fingers a little harder into Tommy's hip, and jesus, Tommy was going to have bruises along the top of his ass, in the shape of Bubonic's thumb against the point of his hipbone.

"I'll wipe the cameras," Bubonic repeated, running the backs of his knuckles up Tommy's cock, tracing the shape of the head where it was trapped just below Tommy's belt. "They won't find out. But I'll take a backup first. I'll send it to you. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Clips, fifteen seconds at a time. It'll be months before you'll have the whole thing, before you'll be able to watch it all."

"Jesus—" Tommy bit down on the inside of his cheek; he was so fucking hard, he was so fucking close; his thighs were shaking, he just needed—he needed—

"You'll want me to delete it, of course," Bubonic murmured. "Maybe I'll even tell you I have. You'll know better than to believe me, at first. And then, after a month or two, you'll think maybe I did it after all. Maybe I was telling you the truth. And then I'll send you the first clip again."

"You son of a bitch," Tommy said, and came, helpless, against the palm of Bubonic's hand. It felt like it took forever, seizing shudders working their way through his entire body, the stimulation almost too hard and exactly right, and some part of him couldn't help thinking about how it—how it was going to look on that fucking video: nothing showing, his pants not even open, but unmistakable anyway, written in the motion of his hips, the desperate clutch of his hand on Bubonic's wrist.

"Well," Bubonic said, when it was over, Tommy struggling to catch his breath. "I think this means you owe me one, Detective Calligan."

Tommy forced his head up, met Bubonic's eyes—and he wanted to be able to tell himself that it terrified him, the idea of whatever it was Bubonic was going to demand of him in return; he wanted to be able to tell himself the sharp bright jolt tingling through him was dread.

But it wasn't, and he knew it.


End file.
